GeneWatch UK and TestBiotech PR: Warning to EU Member States not to allow new genetically engineered soybeans with resistance to glyphosate for import

17th November 2015

Recent assessment of EFSA supports concerns regarding health
risks

On 18 November, the Standing Committee on Plants, Animals,
Food and Feed has three applications for the import authorisation of
genetically engineered soybeans with resistance to glyphosate on its agenda.
These soybeans can be used as food and feed across the EU. Two of these plants
have been engineered to be resistant to the combined use of other herbicides
and glyphosate. Testbiotech and GeneWatch UK are together requesting that these
authorisation processes are suspended.

Their concerns are supported by a recent conclusion of the
European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) on the health risk assessment of
glyphosate: In its assessment, EFSA concludes that there is no evidence for the
carcinogenicity of the active ingredient glyphosate. But this conclusion
explicitly does not include the applications of glyphosate on genetically
engineered soybeans or the application of commercial mixtures of glyphosate
such as Roundup that contain various additives.

"As EFSA states in its
recent conclusion on the risk assessment of glyphosate, residue trials on
glyphosate tolerant GM crops were not provided. That is why the risk assessment
of EFSA in regard to health effects 'is limited to conventional crops only'.
Further, EFSA states that additives used in many commercial formulations and
showing a higher toxicity than glyphosate also have to be taken into account.
But as EFSA further states, data on the actual load of residues from these
additives are completely missing", Helen Wallace says GeneWatch UK. "Now the precautionary principle has to be
applied and authorisation of these genetically engineered plants has to be
suspended."

In an open letter to the EU Commission, Testbiotech and
GeneWatch UK are warning that the genetically engineered soybeans are likely to
be sprayed with various formulations used in countries such as Argentina,
Brazil and the US, but which have never been approved in the EU. Further, the
organisations are warning that the herbicides isoxaflutole and dicamba that can
be applied in combination with glyphosate, do leave residues in the crops - and
both are known to impact human health.

"The residues
resulting from the usage of isoxaflutole are considered to be probably
carcinogenic. The combinatorial health effects caused by the mixture of
residues might be much more severe than can be expected from the assessment of
the single components. But those combinatorial effects were not assessed by
EFSA. This is second reason why we are demanding that these authorisations are
stopped now", says Christoph Then for Testbiotech.